I've had my 2 twin boys (they are now 9 months) for about 3 months and they were on Happy Glider Supreme pellets, Wambaroo HPS (mixed with water), some chicken occasionally, and a few berries a night. The breeder has 27 very handle-able healthy gliders and my boys were very healthy at the 1st vet check when I got them neutred.

I began decreasing the pellets to a few and adding a variety of fresh F&V as soon as I got them in addition to the HPS. They seem to enjoy veggies more than fruits and stopped eating the HPS even if I mixed it in. Because of all of this I was nervous that they weren't getting a balanced diet so I made a batch of the original HPW and they love it ! Unfortunately they barely eat anything else now. It's been a month since I switched them and I even tried reducing the amount of F&V to see if maybe the TBSP of each looked like too much but I'm still tossing a lot out each morning. They have each gained 10g (they are now 84g and 94g) in the last 6 weeks and seem to be thriving. Should I be worried? Is this just because it's a new diet? Will they start to eat their F&V again? I'm starting to think about going back to AWD but I'm worried about their nutrition. Just looking for advice/experiences before I switch back.

I feed ours OPHW with fruits and veggies. We have some that are average weight and some that are bigger.
85 to 95 grams seems like they are on the small size, but that is not bad.

We have gotten several rehomed gliders over the years, we switch them to the OHPW diet and they usually take a LONG time to switch over to eating F&V, but love the OHPW. also, with critterlove I think it is 1 tablespoon per glider, with OHPW it is 1 Tablespoon for 2 gliders. so if you are giving them to much OHPW they could be filling up on that.
It took some of ours up to 2 months to start eating the F&V. they go for corn first, then eat lots of the peas, then the green beans. the fruits are not eaten as much, I do see them take some out and eat it, but I usually throw out alot of uneaten fruits.

The last 2 nights I didn't add the OHPW and they seemed to eat more of the Veggies and a little fruit. Unfortunately they ate all of the pellets for the 1st time since I got them. I only leave about a dozen pellets so I'm not too worried. They are only 9 months old so my vet said not to worry too much about their weight until they are a year or older and they are very healthy right now. I give 1 1/2 tsps per glider of OHPW and a TBSP each of F&V per glider and put their food in 2 separate dishes since I have a food hog who will actually sit in the bowl so his brother can't eat lol. I don't think their breeders diet was bad but there was definitely room for improvement. I made concessions for it because they are handled from day one of OOP and came to me so easy to manage (for a sugar glider that is). Thanks for the reply. Just looking for some opinions from more experienced parents and I appreciate the wisdom. Hopefully they remember that they like the F&V and start eating them again. I really don't want to switch them since their fur looks so good and they are adjusting to a set routine, playtime, diet etc. It's really a lot of trial and error with them it seems.

So I posted the above concern about 2 months ago and not much has changed in their eating habits. This week they are eating their HPW and veggies but no fruit. Before I mixed their batch of HPW this time I only gave them their favorite F&V for 3 nights in a row. They cleaned their bowls out. I added the HPW in a separate bowl on the 4th night and they are back to eating just the HPW and barely any F&V. Should I switch their diet? Chip still seems thin to me. Maybe his metabolism is faster than Dales? I've seen him put away a lot of food so he's definitely eating. I stopped giving them the minimal pellets I normally do about 3 nights ago thinking maybe that was also filling them up. I'm not freaking out about this but should I be worried?

what are the fruits n veg your feeding?

I know you're going to ask about the critter love salads Leela lol! I have been giving the F&V from the Original HPW list. Unfortunately my boys will only eat fresh fruit but will eat frozen Veg.

Last night they had Watermelon, Cantaloupe, Papaya, and Blueberries. For veg they had peas, green beans, spinach, corn, and carrots. I also have swapped for diff F&V when I have them. They had grapes and dark cherries, cucumber and zucchini in place of some of the listed items this week.

I am wondering if I should switch to BML or see if they "grow" into this diet. They also get 2 or 3 mealies twice a week. My son has reptiles and raises dubia roaches so I let them have a couple when we visit. They are crazy about them but the hubby doesn't want them in our house lol so it's become a treat and I'm sure they associate his house with them now.

I'm wondering if this is all normal. Any advice is welcome

well if we don't ask we assume... at first i was assuming you were feeding the salads but you didn't specifically say "salads" you say "fruits n veg" so i figured i better ask and get some clarification.


I'm new to the whole hpw camp but what i've learned so far is this.

The salads were created for a specific purpose. I don't remember all the specifics but something to do with the blood tests they did, they tweaked the salads until the blood work showed what they were looking for. The fruits and veg IN the salads were chosen because those are the ones that worked the best with the hpw staple and when they did the blood tests....

Just like bml has it's own list of fruits and veg so does critter love. They both use those ones for the nutritional values they bring to the over all diet. But bml and critter love are hugely different so the fruit and veg for each diet end up being hugely different.

Now, my first glider leela was a picky little thing when we first got her and I was completely new to all the diet stuff. She wouldn't eat frozen fruit or veg....or so I thought. Turns out, she does, I was just doing everything wrong lol and I didn't know gliders tend to grow into fruits n veg, frozen or fresh.

For the last two years or so i have offered apples and grapes, 3 cages of gliders would barely touch either.

Now that they are on hpw complete, apples are in the salads and they suddenly eat the freakin apples! i have no flippin idea why all the sudden they will eat them and wouldn't touch them before.

The only thing i can think of is the nutrients are different so maybe their body is needing something from the apples that it didn't need on the previous diet.

The other thing I've learned from Peggy is, they don't ingest the kale and green leafy astro turf, they chew on them to get the juice then the leaf is typically left on the plate. So we often think they aren't touching it, when really they probably are.

Another thing I'd like to point out, gliders aren't like Dogs n cats or other animals that clean their bowls. It is normal for gliders to leave food on the plate. So if the plates aren't clean that isn't really a bad sign. If the plates WERE clean then i'd wonder if they got enough to fulfill their needs.



So, You're kind of at a Y in the road. Basically you have combined two separate diets to make a whole new diet. So it's neither Bml or Hpw. It's a whole new diet.

You can either

A. Stick with the hpw your feeding and start using the salads and see how they do on it

or

B. Switch to Bml and use the fruits and veg that go with that because you already "kind of are" already.

Both choices are good diets, what you need to figure out is which direction you want to go in, changing the staple or changing the fruit and veg.

That's what i would do anyway.

As far as them gaining a few grams... they are 9 months and still filling out. Once they hit about a year old their weight gaining will plateau and level off and then they should be stabilized at their Adult weight.

Their weights right now are pretty average so I wouldn't be to worried. Gliders weights can vary just like humans there are petite gliders and chunky gliders and everything in between.

The only time weight should be a huge concern is if the glider loses a lot of weight in a short amount of time. That is usually an indication of an illness.

OR

obese gliders.

There are some gliders that some consider obese, i have a girl that is around 190 grams. But she's active, and jumps, and walk/jogs on the wheel .... she's just a big girl.

She lost weight and was down to about 120 grams for a little while but she was injured and had an infection. As soon as she recovered she regained all her weight back and there was absolutely no change in her diet through the whole thing. I've just learned to accept the fact that she is on the large side and i no longer stress over it.

Hmmm that is a good point about them eating things rich in vitamins that they may need at the time. I have always agreed with that theory also. I also find it amusing that your gliders are eating Apple's now cuz mine won't touch them either and they don't like chicken very much or eggs at all. They eat the eggs in the OHPW staple though and applesauce. Maybe it's a texture thing lol.....

I'm going to have think on this. I was under the impression that OHPW was what I was feeding them but if there is a better diet that will balance them more nutritionally I will probably switch. I'm now wondering if that's why they're only eating their veg. I actually figured out pretty quickly that they only eat the insides of lots of foods.

If I hadn't asked then I wouldn't have known that yours were suddenly eating apples and probably need something from them to balance it all out now. Thanks for the info!

The 1st post was from 2 months ago so I've been wrestling with the OHPW going on 3 months now that's why I came back onto this thread. They will be a year old next month. The kids grow up so fast!

I've laughed at myself a lot in the past 5 mths due to the fact that I used to work at a zoo and all of those other animals didn't phase me. Lions and tigers and bears wouldn't give me as much anxiety as these 2 tiny boys. We also have other animals,a dog, a severe Macaw, horses, barn cats and I've hand raised and/or owned several exotics over the years but I am troubled most over my gliders diet. It's strange to be so out of my element.

i have one cage that don't care for chicken or eggs if they had a junk food night and got them as the protein on the plate. If it's in the staple they eat it just fine.

The other two cages loved both eggs and chicken and tear it up.

i no longer do junk food night though so it's only a issue for the ones that did like it .

yeh I am a little amused by the whole apple thing too lol they are also now eating red raspberries and they wouldn't touch them before either.

I don't believe gliders are "picky" they just may not need anything from that particular food they aren't eating. like my gliders, when that changes they start eating that food.

Since I started this hpw n salad diet i inspect the plates pretty regularly so i'm seeing the changes in how and what they will actually eat. The only trace of food left on the plates are the greens and maybe a green bean here n there.

Fruit is the least important part of the diets, according to Bourbon who created bml.